thunderstorm
by Haku Shikome Kido-Mi
Summary: 15 or so years after the warriors of mana saved the world, war has broken out between the beast kingdom and altena. some few are caught in the middle... and mana is rising again. or is this mana's death throes? -original characters -ch. 4 up: wendel!
1. the calm

I decided to write this story because I want to deal with something much neglected in most SD3 (or any RPG, really) fanfiction, which is namely how powerful the main characters have become. They've vanquished evil– now there is nothing in the world that is powerful enough to stand up to them, much less stop them.   
And power like that corrupts.   
–Haku Shikome Kido-Mi   


thunderstorm 

by Haku Shikome Kido-Mi   
  


chapter one- the calm 

  


It was raining. Not very hard, but Yuki could hear the rain drumming on the slats that made up the roof of her house. Occasionally a gust of wind would push the rain though the window, and shower whatever was under the window. Eventually, after it had rained for hours, she had moved everything beyond the rain's freezing reach, into the middle of the house. There wasn't much– blankets, a shelf with salted and dried meat and some candy, a chest with clothing in it, a few iron pots. They all cast long, flickering shadows in the firelight. 

Far off in the distance, maybe over the ocean, Yuki could hear thunder. It approached and receded intermittently, and sometimes a flash of lightening whipped across the sky and lit it up so bright it was almost like the light of the sun. 

But only for an instant. Sunlight was the one thing that the Beast Kingdom never had. Yuki ran her claws through her white, tangled mane and went back to her weaving. 

The thunder came closer again, once or twice roaring so loudly that the walls shook. Yuki sighed. She wanted the storm to pass soon, so that she could go outside without getting soaked and see what damage the storm had dealt to her plants and to the forest. It was hard enough to stay here unnoticed by both the Beastmen and Altena's armies, without having to lose all of her herbs and vegetables to bad rain. 

Her patience was wearing thin, and the patterning of the rain, the crackling of her fire in the hearth and the shuffle-clunk of her loom was beginning to grate more than soothe. After the battle of Mintos and King Kevin's assassination, the war had taken a bad turn for the Beast Kingdom, and Yuki wanted no part in it. King Lugar had pulled his soldiers back to the castle, a last defense. 

Soon, things would snap, and events, like snowfall building up on a mountain, would come to a head and fall like an avalanche. And, like an avalanche, everything in front of it would be swallowed and drown.   
Yuki wanted no part in this war. 

Someone rapped at her door, startling her out of her thoughts. She lay the shuttle of her loom down and stood, and walked over to the door, and opened it. Rain poured outside, making puddles in the dark. The wind shifted and sprayed her with it. 

Standing in the door, under the scant protection of the overhang of the roof, huddled against the cold and the rain, was a man. It was impossible to tell how tall he was, because he was hunched like a beggar and wrapped in a black cloak, so wet that he might as well have swum to her house. The hood was pulled over his head, but his black hair was plastered to his face anyway. 

He looked up at her, shivering from the cold. His face was pale and gaunt, with sharp cheekbones, although from hunger or if he was naturally like that Yuki couldn't tell. He might well die of the cold and the rain if she didn't do something. 

She stepped away from the door and waited for him to come in. He didn't move, just stood there, breathing hard. _Hff-hff-hff._

Yuki clenched her hands into fists. People who insisted on etiquette in ridiculous conditions exasperated her.   
"May I come in?" the man said, almost inaudibly. 

Yuki growled with annoyance. From this point, with him soaked and shivering and hunched, she was at least two heads taller."Yes." she said, finally. 

The man moved quickly, shedding his cloak in the doorway and heading over to the fire, careful not to drip on her loom. He stretched out in front of the fire and sighed, a long shuddering sigh, like a tired soul. 

Yuki shut the door and hung the cloak through one of the windows. It was wet already. More rain wouldn't harm it, and when the storm passed it would dry. 

She walked back to her loom, and sat, and picked up her work where she had left off. Eventually she spoke over the rhythmic shuffle of the loom. "Who are you?" 

"Ikuza." the man said. Either his voice was naturally quiet, or he was too tired to speak louder. Stretched out in front of the fire, he reminded Yuki of nothing more than a large black cat. 

"Ikuza." Yuki repeated, sorting the threads of her weaving and poking them into place. She never once looked at him. "I am Yuki Kingsdotter." 

Either he didn't know who she was, or he didn't care, because his breathing pattern never changed, the same hff-hff-hff but slower than before, almost like he was sleeping. 

"Where do you come from?" Yuki asked, laying down the shuttle-comb of the loom and examining her work. 

"Elsewhere." Ikuza said, curling up like a cat. He was still shivering. 

Yuki glanced at him. "You'll never get warm in those clothes. Go change. You'll find some dry clothes in the chest, and some blankets." 

Ikuza stirred, first looking up at her with a unreadable emotion in his eyes, and then, with the same silent graceful speed that he had entered her house with, darting to the back of the house. He had the look of something hunted about him. 

Yuki turned her back on him and continued her weaving. She clicked her claws against the wood frame of the loom, when it the color of his eyes struck her. Deep crimson. His paleness, was, perhaps, not completely derived of the cold and the wet. 

She turned around. Ikuza, already having changed his clothing, was wrapping himself in a blanket. She glared at him, and he noticed it and shrank back to the wall. 

"Demonspawn. Where do you come from?" Yuki hissed. 

Ikuza looked cornered, backed up into a dead end. He slid down the wall, knees up to his chest, wrapping the blanket even tighter around himself. The clothes he was wearing, her clothes, borrowed, were too loose for him. He was lost in them. They accented his thinness. 

His head was lowered, and he was staring at the floor. His dark hair shadowed his eyes.   
The rain ceased to patter on the roof, and only distant thunder broke the silence. 

"The Underworld." Ikuza whispered. 

Yuki exhaled. _Hnff._ She had thought as much. She went back to her weaving, listening to Ikuza breathing behind her. From his reactions, the way he acted, always furtive, moving quickly, she knew that he was being hunted. Probably by demons of some sort. If they followed him here, then he would have to leave. As long as they didn't, he could stay. 

Yuki repeated that out loud. 

Ikuza went back by the fire, stretching out in front of it again. He was still shaking, although whether from cold or nervousness now she couldn't tell. He'd taken the blanket and huddled in it like a frightened mouse. 

"Why do you live here, alone?" Ikuza asked, still speaking so quietly it was hard to hear him. 

"Why not?" 

"Don't you get bored?" 

"I find things to do." Yuki replaced one of the threads with another, another color. "Why did you come here?" 

"I... I'm being hunted..." 

"That's what I thought." The loom clunked and shuffled. "Why?" 

Ikuza gave her a nervous glance, and sat up slowly. "I don't know if I can trust you..." 

"I am worthy of your trust." Yuki said, placing the shuttlecomb down for the fourth or so time this night. She stood and walked over to Ikuza, crouching in front of him. "I have no reason to betray you." 

Ikuza nodded, quickly, but he was still shivering. He reached inside the collar of his shirt and drew out a silver flute, on a chain. He was wearing it as a necklace. 

Yuki sat back. She didn't know what it was, but by the way that Ikuza was treating it, with such reverence, it must be magical in some way. 

Ikuza grought it up to his lips and started to play it. The music was soft, and sounded like silver bells, or wind through reeds. It was ghostly, and it filled the house quickly. It filled the night, weaving and dancing. Ikuza closed his eyes, and concentrated on his playing. 

The melody twisted, sending shivers down Yuki's back. Now it sounded out a lament, a ghost ship torn by stormy sea, dead souls never at rest. 

Ikuza stopped, and hid the flute back in his shirt. Yuki sat on the loom stool, and studied Ikuza's face intently.   
There was a shadow hovering behind him, blocking the firelight. Yuki, startled, stared at it. It stared back her, with one yellow, unblinking, cat-slit eye. Ikuza glanced at Yuki, and the behind himself. He saw the shadow, and grinned, slightly. Yuki noted that he had fangs for canine teeth, marking what type of demon he was. A vampire, like the Jagan King Kevin had told her about so many times. 

"That's Shade." Ikuza said. Shade moved his eerie gaze towards Ikuza, then bobbed in the air and dissipated, back into Ikuza's flute. "It's his flute I carry. He's the last of the Elementals. Without the Mana Goddess, without Mana, and with nothing to ground themselves in, the others vanished." Ikuza paused, thinking, and touched the chain that he carried the flute on. He finished, speaking in his usual, barely audible tone. "As far as I know." 

_ Hnff._ Yuki sighed, and then rolled the shuttlecomb in what loose thread there still was. "I'm tired. I'm going to sleep. You may sleep there, by the fire, if you wish." She stood and paced back to the piles of blankets, spreading some on the floor into a makeshift bedding. Ikuza was breathing steadily by the fire, probably already asleep. He had been running for a long time. 

Yuki sat on her bed and studied her weaving from afar. She couldn't see any flaw in it. It was as perfect as the design that she had laid out in her head. Eventually she tired of looking at it and pulled the other blankets over herself. 

The weaving was of Dolan. 

_What strange times these are,_ Yuki thought, before drifting into sleep. _All war and blood and fire. I wish that there may be some peace._


	2. demonspawn

chapter two- demonspawn

  


A week passed with Ikusa residing at Yuki's house. He aided her in salvaging what small portion of her plants survived the storm, and made himself helpful around the house in other small ways. Yuki decided that she was better with him than without. 

But two people are easier found than one. 

Yuki sat on the now-finished weaving of Dolan, while behind her Ikuza spun cloudy wool into thread. 

"You're a fine weaver." Ikuza said. 

"Huh." Yuki flicked one of the strings of the loom with a claw. Outside, stars sparkled in the eternal night of the Beast Kingdom, making it impossible to tell time. 

"You dye your own thread?" 

"Yes." Yuki tapped her claws on the floor. "I grow the dyes." 

"Is it hard?" Startled at the question, Yuki glanced at Ikuza. 

"Is what hard?" 

"Growing the dye, when it's always night." 

"No. Some plants grow very well here." 

"I see." Ikuza finished the bit of wool he had been spinning and laid it to one side. He stood, quietly, and walked over to the window, leaning out into the night. "Why do you hide here?" 

"Do you really want to know?" 

Ikuza nodded. 

"I am the daughter of the Beast King, the king before both Kevin and Lugar. I am his second-born, and to a beastwoman, not a human woman. I was born after Kevin left and before he returned." Yuki paused, and stretched. "I always got along well with Kevin. He told me stories of what he had done, the adventures he had. Time passed, and my father died." 

"I'm sorry." Ikuza said. 

"There's no reason for you to be. He died of old age. It had been approaching for years." Yuki said, but she still carried old sorrow in her voice. "Kevin was named king after him, as the first-born. Some time after that, Queen Angela, one of the other Warriors of Mana, attacked the Beast Kingdom. I don't know why. I suppose I never will. They were good friends, before that." 

"What happened?" Ikuza's usually quiet voice dipped even lower, almost inaudible even to Yuki's wolfish hearing. 

"That was, hnn, a year or two ago." Yuki stared at the floor, incredible sadness welling up in her voice. "Kevin didn't understand, and went out to meet her." Yuki took a deep breath, and spoke the next words as if it hurt to talk. "She killed him. I watched him die. He never did understand why. Lugar named himself heir and crowned himself. He and I never got along, and one day he decided that I was a threat to his already unstable reign." 

Ikuza started to ask a question, but Yuki cut him off. 

"By law, the heir to the throne must be of royal blood. Direct royal descent. That is me. But I never wanted the throne, and told Lugar so many times. He never really believed me, perhaps because he wanted the throne so badly. He spread rumors that I was unfit to rule, as a woman and an albino. I think he meant those as insurance, so that his appointed heir would take the throne when he died, and not me. 

"After that, he tried to murder me. I killed the assassin he had sent and fled. Altena still besieged us. They burnt Mintos to the ground, and killed many of inhabitants. The survivors fled to the castle. I left in the confusion.   
"When Queen Angela heard of my disappearance, she sent patrols out, searching for me. Perhaps she wants me as a puppet queen, after the Beast Kingdom falls. Which it will. How much longer can it stand against both Forcena and Altena?" Yuki trailed off, and Ikuza waited patiently for Yuki to begin again. 

She did. "Or maybe she wants me dead, to erase the royal line. I retreated here, and found the house and built the garden. I don't know who lived here before." Yuki stood and stretched. Told like that, it sounded like naught more than a fairy tale, which depressed her. Living all her life in darkness... "That's all." 

Ikuza looked sad, and he toyed with the chain of his necklace in silence. 

"So." Yuki moved up beside him, leaning out of the window as well. "Why are you here?" 

When Ikuza finally spoke, he was very quiet. "I was a prince, of sorts. I aquired the flute, and fled from the Underworld, when the rift was opened by the Dark Prince. Later, I found that I couldn't return. Then someone decided that the flute was the key that opens the gate, and I have been hunted ever since." 

"Is it?" 

"I don't know. I'm not sure I want to try." 

"If you unsealed the Underworld, wouldn't you be a hero to other demons?" 

"It might kill me." Ikuza was silent for a while, and then he sighed. "And this world is so beautiful. I don't want to see it burn." 

Yuki waited by his side, but he didn't say anything more. She turned to lay out her pattern for another weaving, and she heard a sharp crack. 

It could have been nothing. 

Yuki's head snapped up. "What was that?!" 

Ikuza blinked, startled, and turned away from the window. "Was what?" 

"Something, outside." Yuki hissed. Ikuza blanched, even paler than he normally was. 

"I've stayed here too long. They've found me again." 

"Demons..." Yuki phrased it as a question. Ikuza nodded mutely. Yuki strode over to her fireplace and plucked the halberd from the wall above the cheerfully sparking fire. "Hu. Demons bleed and die, or so Kevin informed me." She hefted the halberd, testing its weight, and then stalked towards the door. 

"Wait!" Ikuza said, sounding desperate. "I don't want you to get hurt." 

"Then come fight with me." Yuki said, softly. 

Ikuza followed her out the door. 

Yuki stopped some paces from her house, facing the dark screen of trees beyond her small clearing. Tiny white blossoms carpeted the thick green-blue grass. 

She thre her head back and roared. Ikuza started. He was used to her being so calm and soft-spoken.   
"What demonspawn lurks the night, I call you here to fight!" 

The shadows themselves answered her call, churning out of the forest, a mess of smoky shadow and claws and dead, bright yellow eyes. They paused, facing Yuki, and slowly their twisting forms solidified until Yuki could see that there were three or four of them. More than that was impossible to tell, because they always moving, twisting around each other unnervingly. 

Yuki howled, a weird ululating battle cry, and charged the demons, swinging the halberd over her head like a short spear. The demons met her in mid-charge, weaving her into their insane design. Ikuza could see glimpses of her, shining white fur and flashing halberd, among the demon's flowing claws and shadows. 

She sliced through one of the demons, and it shrieked and vanished, blown apart by winds that noone else felt. The pattern shattered for a moment, and Yuki broke free and backed up to Ikuza's side. She was breathing hard, her fur matted with many shallow cuts and black ichor– demon's blood– running down her halberd and over her hands. 

The demons regrouped. 

"I can't... Ikuza..." Yuki said, through clenched teeth. The halberd slid out of her grasp and she collapsed, leaving Ikuza alone with the demons. 

The demons advanced, hissing and speaking in voices like wind through wheat. What they were saying was unintelligible, but the malice that pervaded their words was impossible to mistake. 

Ikuza stepped backwards. 

He took out the flute, and began to play it. 

The demons stopped, confused. The music was chilling, warping the night into something deeper, darker, calling something out of the shadows that even the demons he fought feared to tread. A haunting song of summoning. 

Behind Ikuza, a huge figure, shining so brightly white it could not be looked at, wavered into being. It had no legs, and instead tapered into a tail, or nothingness. Ikuza continued to play, either expecting it or oblivious to it. 

The figure grinned, all fangs, and glared at the demons with piercing, unearthly orange eyes that glowed like dying embers. It carried a flute in one of its clawed hands, an exact, if larger, copy of the flute that Ikuza still played. 

"I demand a price for my summoning." Gorva said, his voice a snarl. Restless winds blew about him, winds that filled a dead ship's sails and disheveled Yuki's white mane and Ikuza's black hair. Ikuza let the flute fall from his hands, and silently pointed back at the house. Gorva laughed, a horrible, grating, screeching cacophony. The house burst into flames. 

So did the demons. Screaming and shrieking, they roiled, breaking the pattern they wove with their bodies into fragments, snatches of their shadowy weaving. The night was lit into hellish day, everything tinted red and orange. 

Gorva laughed as the demons died. 

Eventually, they ceased shrieking and dissolved into ashes, grey ashes that sparkled among the grass like stained snow. Gorva vanished, and with him went the winds. 

Ikuza slipped the flute back under his shirt and knelt by Yuki and wept. 

Behind him, the house burned.   
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	3. jad

chapter three– jad 

Yuki leaned heavily on Ikuza. Her right leg has been wounded badly enough that she couldn't walk on it and still expect it to heal well, so Ikuza had insisted that she use him as her crutch. She had been going to use her halberd, which was now slung across her back. 

It hadn't taken much insisting, as it hurt her to walk on it, and top-heavy weapons do not make good walking sticks. 

They had arrived at Jad late that morning, and as the sun rose higher into the sky, they straggled around looking for a healer. It was late afternoon, now, and none were to be found. There were no healers in Jad, as better pay and more reward was found where there was war. 

Many people had suggested they go to Wendel, an idea which Yuki was growing increasingly fond of.   
When the sun started to set, and darkness to envelop the land, Yuki dragged Ikuza into a tavern and ordered a lot of meat for herself. 

"How are you going to pay for all of this?" Ikuza asked, while Yuki ate ravenously. 

Yuki swallowed what she was chewing on, and wiped her muzzle with a piece of cloth that passed for a napkin. "Do you think I'm broke? How did we get passage on that ship?" 

Ikuza looked down at the table, blushing slightly from embarrassment. "I didn't think about it. I'm sorry, Yuki." 

"There's nothing to apologize for." Yuki glanced at her food, and then up at Ikuza. "...you are a very strange vampire. Do you want anything to eat?" 

"No... thank you... I don't eat." Ikuza said, still staring at the table. 

Yuki exhaled, a loud _huunh_ sound, and quickly finished what was left of her food. She stood, and paid the barkeep, and then headed out the door, leaning on the walls and tables as needed. Ikuza got up and followed her, moving with all the grace and speed of a shy black cat. 

Yuki was standing outside of the door, framed in the light from inside the tavern. It made her fur shine golden, and the bloodstained bandages on her leg were black in the night. "I think we should leave for Wendel tonight." 

Ikuza nodded assent. 

"All right, then. Let's go." Yuki hobbled a few steps before Ikuza caught up with her and put her arm around his shoulders. 

They made their way out of the gates of Jad, into the Rabite Forest. 

It did not live up to its name– as they traveled down the well-worn dirt road, they saw only one Rabite, huddled sleeping under a bush. The night was silent, save for the incessant chirping of crickets and calls of night birds. 

Neither Ikuza nor Yuki saw any need to break the silence, and so they did not. 

They walked until something screamed, and sent the night birds and the crickets into stunned stillness. Ikuza set into a run, Yuki hobbling behind, trying to move as fast as she could without breaking open her wound. 

When she caught up with Ikuza, he was crouched next to a girl, who was sitting against him and shaking and crying quietly, choking back sobs. Ikuza gently put his hand on her forehead– she was hot to his touch, like she was burning with fever. 

"Don't touch me!" the girl shrieked, and pulled away from him. She crawled into the shadows beneath a tree and sobbed. Yuki hobbled over. The girl was tall, not at as tall was Yuki or Ikuza but still tall for a girl of her apparent age. Her hair would have been the golden color of wheat in the light, but in the night it was a pale silvery gold. The dress she was wearing was a fine weave, and even with the dirt muting it the colors were vibrant. She was wearing a amber-stone necklace, and the amber shone with inner fire, even in the darkness. 

"What's wrong?" Yuki said, softly. 

"Nothing... nothing... oh, Goddess, I need to get to Wendel..." The girl ceased crying and wiped away her tears with a sleeve of her dress. 

Yuki sat down. "We're going to Wendel as well. Do you want to travel with us?" 

The girl nodded. "I would appreciate that..." 

"Good!" Yuki said, cheerfully. "My name is Yuki, and that is Ikuza." 

"I am..." The girl hesitated. "I am Mizumi-Hi." 

Yuki stood, leaning on her halberd. Ikuza joined them and offered to help Mizumi up. She accepted, graciously, and Ikuza found it odd that when he touched her hand it was not burning with fever. He wondered if he had imagined it. 

Yuki waited for Ikuza, and then all three of them set off. Neither Ikuza nor Yuki noticed the fine gray ashes that were scattered around where Mizumi had been sitting. 

"Why are you traveling alone, through this forest?" Yuki asked Mizumi as they walked. 

"Don't ask me that, and I'll not ask what a wounded beastwoman is doing, traveling with a vampire." Mizumi said. Ikuza flinched nervously. 

"Fair enough." Yuki said, a little annoyed by Mizumi's suddenly arrogant manner. 

"Why were you crying?" Ikuza asked, quietly, as usual. 

"...I..." Mizumi glanced at Ikuza. "I was scared." 

"Of what?" 

Mizumi shook her head, trying to clear her mind of unpleasant memories. "Nothing." 

"I see." 

No one spoke for a while, until they came to a cave-like corridor, the entrance to the Cave of Waterfalls. One side was a moss-grown cliff, and the other dropped off into a crystal-clear lake. Waterfalls cascaded down into the lake from the overhanging cliff. The only sound was the rush of the water and the three travelers breathing. 

Yuki made them stop before they entered the cave. 

"Tomorrow is the Mana Holy Day." Yuki sat down, crosslegged, and leaned against the cliff wall. "The monsters inside sleep on that day, so unless you want to fight your way through, I suggest we wait until morning."   
Ikuza sat down beside her, and put his head on Yuki's shoulder. He was asleep before she could say anything about it. 

Mizumi glanced at the cave mouth nervously, and then sat as well. She glared at Yuki for a while, until Yuki fell asleep as well. The she sat, and watched the waterfalls cascade down in the starlight until it was dawn. 


	4. wendel

chapter four– wendel 

Wendel was peaceful, in the early morning, before everything had opened and people filled the bright streets. All of the doors were closed and the shutters on the windows were closed, save the tavern and the shops. No denizens walked the streets.   
  
Ikuza moved through the empty town like a ghost, and he would have been even more graceful but for Yuki, who was still using him as a crutch. Mizumi-Hi trailed behind them, occasionally pausing to brush the dirt and grass stains off of her fine dress. It was to no avail; her dress was stained beyond recovery. 

"Do you think the Priest of Light is awake, this early?" she asked. 

"Yes." Yuki said, inclining her head. 

A gateway mad of trees rose before the three travelers, magnificent, an arch of intertwining branches. Two soldier-monks in white robes stood in the shadows of the massive trees, and let them pass without a word. In front of them rose the Temple of Light, a solid building of stone, with many windows and balconies. Vines curled up the lower walls. 

It was not as huge or as grand as Mizumi had been expecting, and Ikuza was startled by its relative plainness. For all the windows and intricate archways, it could have been a castle. He had half-expected a palace of light, an antithesis to the Underworld's fortresses of darkness. Yuki knew what it looked like– Kevin had told her, many times. 

They climbed the steps and entered. A carpet, old and well-worn, led past another door, and from there into an chamber, lit by the rising sun through stained glass. Ikuza flinched before he stepped in– entering this holy place was making him uneasy, and he suspected that if he stayed here too long he would be sick. 

He whispered this to Yuki, who shrugged. "If you feel nauseated, then leave." she whispered back. He nodded and helped her across the threshold. 

A small table, covered in white cloth, was the only furniture in the room. Behind the table stood a little blond-haired girl, with elfin ears and large blue eyes. She was drowning in stately bishop's robes, which clashed with her short stature and youngness. Behind her was a tall man with long silver hair, in white robes, and behind him was an ivory statue of the Mana Goddess, framed in the light from the window. 

The two made an dignified procession. 

"Hi!" the girl chirped. 

"Tell me that's not the Priest of Light." Mizumi hissed into Yuki's ear, with an edge of desperation in her voice, and grabbed Yuki's arm. "That girl's not more than twelve!" Yuki pulled her arm away. 

"I'm thirty-two!" the girl said, annoyed, and then glared at Ikuza, who was staring at her with thinly veiled disbelief. Mizumi covered her mouth and laughed hysterically, if rather muffled. Or she might have been crying– it was hard to tell. 

"Lady Carlie," Yuki said, trying to mend the situation, "my name is Yuki." 

Carlie scratched her head, thinking. Yuki started to continue but was cut off. "Yuki... Kevin's little sister?" Carlie said, in her bubbly-light voice. 

"Yes. Ikuza and I–" 

"Ikuza?" Carlie asked. 

Yuki nodded towards Ikuza, was was still supporting her in stead of her bad leg. "We have a problem." 

"Usually people do!" Carlie said, brightly. "That's why they come to me, and ask stupid questions." The man standing behind her shot her a warning glance. 

Yuki tried to swallow her growing annoyance. "Are you going to listen to me?" 

The man behind Carlie put his hand on her shoulder. "Please, go on." he said. Carlie nodded, standing still, her hands buried in her flowing robes. 

Ikuza stepped up, in front of Yuki, and bowed deeply to Carlie. He was trembling slightly with nervousness, and the strain of being in a place so adverse to what he was. "Yuki wishes to tell you of this." He drew the silver flute out of his shirt and held it in front of Carlie. His eyes reflected the light oddly, becoming a darker shade of red instead of shining bright crimson. 

Carlie blinked. "Heath... what is it?" 

"I don't know..." Heath was looking at Ikuza oddly, like he could see who he was and where he had come from. 

"It's the last resting place of the spirit, Shade." Ikuza said, softly, and played a short melody on the flute. It was chilling, and while he played the room darkened, like an eclipse of the still-rising sun. The musty smell of gravedust filled the room. When Ikuza finished, the room had cleared, and Shade was hovering behind him, clutching his cat-slit eye in his claws and regarding each person in the room in turn with it. His unblinking gaze lingered on Carlie longest of all. 

"Carlie!" Shade said, in a whispery, cold voice. "The other spirits have all extinguished. I am the last one, and if this home of mine is destroyed I too will fade, and then all Mana will be lost." 

Mizumi looked frightened, and she backed away from Shade, a hand around her necklace. "No..." she whispered. No one but Yuki heard her. "That's not true!" 

Yuki glanced at her, startled at her reaction. 

Carlie looked sad, her clear blue eyes welling up with tears. She rubbed her face with a sleeve. Heath spoke for her. "You have a powerful item, Ikuza. What are you going to do with it?" 

Ikuza jerked the flute over his head and held it out to Heath. Shade's tail twitched. "I don't want this. I offer it to you." 

"I cannot take it from you, Ikuza." Heath said. 

"It belongs to you, Ikuza." Shade said, his whispery voice filling the chamber. 

Ikuza went to his knees, holding the flute above his head and shivering with some emotion Yuki couldn't name. Fear, perhaps, or exhaustion. "No... he's always in my head, watching me! I don't want this! I want to be left alone!" He was in tears, fighting them back and losing. "It's this flute's fault that I had to leave, that I can't go back home! Why must I keep it?!" 

Shade looked down on him, his unblinking eye boring into Ikuza's back. 

Yuki knelt by him, and stroked his hair as she would a child's. 

Laughter filled the chamber, cruel laughter. "I'll take it, then." The voice was sweet, like honey, but mocking in its sweetness. 

Mizumi shrieked and fled behind Ikuza, still clutching her amber necklace in her right hand. Shade glanced over at the wall and vanished. 

Standing against the wall was a young man, not older than seventeen or eighteen, with beautiful golden hair that framed a face that truly belonged on a statue or in a painting, not on a living person. He was wearing a crimson robe, and over it, a crimson cape. It clashed with his bright green eyes. 

He was striking. 

Carlie was staring at him like he was a ghost, or a demon come to haunt her. "You're dead!" she accused. 

He laughed again. "Obviously not." He stepped forward, as he moved, the golden bangles on his arms chimed together. 

"You should be older." Carlie said, sounding miffed, and crossed her arms petulantly. 

"I've spent the last twelve years dead. Why should I be older than I am?" 

Carlie looked shocked, as did Heath. Yuki and Ikuza were simply confused, still crouched between the young man and Mizumi. 

"Resurrection magic." Heath said, finally. The man laughed again. 

Mizumi was muttering a plea under her breath, desperately. 

"I've come," Koren said, "to collect my bride, and the necklace she stole when she ran." 

Mizumi whimpered, sounding like a kicked dog. 

"It's not becoming of a Dragon princess to mewl," Koren snarled, and strode across the room, around Yuki and Ikuza like they didn't exist. He grabbed Mizumi by the collar of her dress, and lifted her off the ground to look him eye to eye. 

Mizumi chose the only way of escape she could think of, and reverted to her true form. The room was suddenly filled with thirty feet of slashing silver dragon. Ikuza stood quickly and dragged Yuki behind the altar-table.   
Koren jumped backwards, and threw up a shield of dazzling light with a quick gesture. Misumi's thrashing tail knocked the candles off the table. Carlie put the fire out by stamping on them with a fury. 

"You're coming with me!" Koren flung out his hand, and glowing orange strands wrapped themselves around Mizumi, binding her. 

"No! No no no no no!" Mizumi writhed, thirty feet of wings and scales ripping up the carpet and walls, and roared. The necklace that she was still wearing flashed, and the bonds around her dissolved, uncurling into the air. 

Koren swore. Mizumi roared again, and rose up, wings extended, scraping her crested head across the ceiling. Stone chips showered the room. 

Koren gestured again, murmuring words under his breath, and his shield vanished, and suddenly he was a dragon as well, golden and red to Mizumi's silver and blue. He snarled, and charged Mizumi, claws sparking off of the floor and walls. 

Carlie looked increasingly angry at every scratch dealt to the chamber. Heath was busy maintaining another shield of magic around Yuki, Ikuza, Carlie, himself, and the room immediately surrounding them, including the statue and the window. 

Everything else was quickly being shredded by the two fighting dragons. 

"How come Koren's a dragon to?" Carlie asked Heath.   
"The only reason I can think of is that when he was resurrected, the Dragon Emperor saw fit to make him of the Dragon Clan." 

Mizumi-dragon was thrown into the barrier, and Heath winced with the strain of maintaining it. 

"I think," Yuki said quietly to Ikuza, "that if we were to leave, now would be a good time." 

"Do something quickly, Carlie." Heath said, his voice strained. 

"Oh!" Carlie glanced at Yuki, startled. "You're hurt! Waitasecond, Heath!" She chanted something, too fast to follow, and threw out her hands. Then she flounced over to Yuki and unwrapped the bandages around her leg. 

There was no wound, just a small white scar among white fur. 

"There! All better!" Carlie said, pleased. 

Koren-dragon shattered the entrance door with his tail, trying to pin Mizumi to the ground. 

"Get out!" Carlie yelled. Koren stopped dead. Mizumi retreated into a corner of the room, head down, fangs bared. She was bleeding, some scales torn out of her hide, although not as much as Koren was. 

Koren swivelled his head around and glared at Carlie with slit-pupil green dragon eyes. "Excuse me?" 

"Go fight outside! You're wrecking my room!" Carlie crossed her arms again and tapped her foot impatiently. 

Koren laughed, his laugh made all the more frightening because of the draconic rumble that pervaded it.   
"You're ordering a dragon to leave?" 

"Yeah. Go away." 

"No." 

Carlie made a quick gesture with her hand and Koren was gone. There was a loud whoosh as air rushed to fill the space where he had been, sending red carpet scraps fluttering in the air. Mizumi glanced at Carlie. 

"Where did you send him?" Her voice was lower then when she was human, a guttural rumble. 

Carlie shrugged. "Really far away." 

Yuki sighed in relief. Ikuza stood, silently, and headed for the door, his flute in his hand. 

"I think you had better explain yourself." Heath said, after he dispelled the shield. "You as well, vampire. Come back." 

Ikuza turned around slowly. "I don't..."   
Heath crossed the room quickly, and stood face-to-face with Ikuza. He was a head shorter then the quiet vampire. "I don't want to hear excuses. Where did you get the flute?" 

"I took it..." Ikuza avoided Heath's gaze. "...from my brother, after he died..." 

"Who was your brother?" 

"Jagan..." Ikuza said, very softly. 

"I see." Heath said. "Does being in this room affect you?" 

"It's making me ill..." Ikuza put the flute-necklace on again, and hid the flute in his shirt. "I can't stay in here any longer..." He turned and ran outside, as graceful as a fleeing shadow. Heath sighed, and shook his head.   
In the corner, Carlie was helping Mizumi up. She was healed, but her dress was in tatters, and she was wide-eyed and shaking from fear and exhaustion. 

"You can't let him take me," Mizumi told Carlie, her voice quavery. "You won't, right?" 

Carlie nodded. "You're okay here, okay?" 

Mizumi swallowed and clutched at Carlie. "You don't understand, you're just a little girl! How can you understand?! My father's just marrying me off to him so that I produce a heir to the Dragon empire, he doesn't care about me, and Koren's always so cold." She covered her face with her hands and started to cry. 

Carlie glanced at Heath, not sure exactly what she should do, and settled for patting Mizumi on the head gently and saying "It's okay!" 

Yuki stood next to Heath, and watched the door Ikuza had fled out of. "Where did he go?" 

"He'll be back," Heath said, an indirect answer to her question. "It's safer here than anywhere else, and he won't leave you here alone." 

Heath was right– Ikuza came back at sunset, and sat next to Yuki at the dinner banquet silently and never took any food offered to him. Mizumi didn't show up, and when Yuki asked Carlie said cheerfully that Mizumi was sleeping. 

They passed the night in Wendel. 


End file.
